


leeches

by lejf



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bottom Sam, Codependency, M/M, basically sam goes angst angst and runs away, gratuitous angst, picture :|
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 14:58:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9662312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lejf/pseuds/lejf
Summary: Sam discovers a spell to make everybody forget him. He’s convinced it’s for the best.Pre-Stanford.





	

Sam jumps and jitters through the entire day, starting whenever Dean peers over his shoulder trying to figure out what’s wrong with his little brother. “Just nervous,” Sam lies, when Dean asks. “There’s some big test tomorrow at school on literature and I’m really banking on if they choose an easy unfamiliar text or if the question they give for the familiar is thematic–”

Dean grins, wide and easy, leaning back and rocking on his heels. Sam’s heart practically blubbers and his words falter at Dean’s own. “It’s Sunday, man, why not blow off some steam?”

“What? Dean, didn’t you hear anything I was just saying?” It’s surprisingly easy to pull real consternation into his voice as if there were an actual test he was panicking for. His eyes are busy cataloguing the way a smile spreads on Dean’s face and he realises all of a sudden that he wants to go, to get one last time with his brother before tomorrow morning he paints a hundred sigils on his body with his own blood and walks free of his family.

“Thought you didn’t like last-minute cramming, Sammy.” Dean bobs his eyebrows.

Sam’s answering smile is a little strained. There’s a familiar gleam in Dean’s eye that tells him Dean’s thinking of all the pretty girls in swimwear that’ll be down at the lake that’s tucked beside the town like a bird under its mother’s wing. Much as Sam will hate it, he aches to see his brother in his element. “Maybe,” Sam says, and before the word leaves his lips, Dean’s springing up and grabbing his arm, snatching a pair of boardshorts out of Sam’s closet and hauling him out Sam’s bedroom. “Hey!” Sam squarks. “That wasn’t a yes!”

“It’s friggin’ close enough,” Dean snorts, and his own shorts and the Impala’s keys and even _towels_ are sitting on the couch in the living room which means Dean had fully planned this out, the shit. He lets go of Sam’s arm but Sam keeps trailing behind anyway, resigned to the fact that he’s going to go. The book detailing the spell is in his bed. Under his pillow. It’ll be waiting for Sam when he comes home. It’s not going anywhere.

The Impala starts up with a familiar purr and soon enough they’re pulling away, Dean blabbering about Lucy from last week and rolling down the windows to blast music down the streets. Through the wind rushing, Metallica, Lucy’s luscious tits, and the shouting of an angry old man they tear past, Sam’s not sure what he’s supposed to be listening to. He settles down inside his own mind instead, absently tracing the symbols he’ll need, Dean’s voice lulling him into safety and cradled by the welcoming hold of the Impala. The spell’s for the best, he thinks. It’s for Sam, yes, but more importantly, it’s for Dean. Dean thinks Sam doesn’t know about the notepad he keeps in his room, the one with all the numbers and _accounting,_ for fuck’s sake — a careful tally of prices and a hold of their money to make sure they pull through every stint Dad leaves them in behind. Dean’s actually incredible with mental maths and saving; Sam’s not sure if he realises Sam secretly checks over all the numbers and is sure to help out. Any money they don’t have to spend means more money saved for when they might need it. Once they were caught out the left field, stuck somewhere down south with only enough money to buy themselves pet kibble. They’re not going to let that happen again.

Dean takes care of Sam and he shouldn’t have to, no matter how much he does it with a smile. Sam’s tricked Dean into loving him and looking after him, little brother like a parasite, a leech. It’s about time Sam set Dean completely free. Dean won’t even remember. The spell will put up a wall, apparently, quietly easing away all memories of the spell’s target and burying them away. Sam’s been reading on the technicalities of it — the initial wall will be incredibly strong, a forcible block, but as the structure is drawn away to become a permanent fixture there’s period of fragility. Sam has to get out of town by then so Dean doesn’t catch sight of him.

Sam’s conviction is steadfast in this decision, backed by the iron lattice of his love for Dean.

(He’ll lose Dean, forever. Oh, god. But he has to do it.)

Sunlight pours in and laughter drifts up on the wind because Dean is pulling into the carpark that overlooks the lake. He sits there for a moment, hand on the Impala’s gearstick, the other still resting against the wheel, staring out at the water where people are laughing and long wet hair is plastered against bare backs. Sam is blindsided as usual by the mere sight of him.

Dean turns towards him, mouth quirked up. “Woah, did someone just kick a puppy?”

“What?” Sam’s eyebrows shoot up into his hair as he tears his gaze to the lake and looks desperately for someone abusing a four-legged ball of happiness, ignoring Dean’s inelegant snort beside him.

“No, I mean your _face,_ man. You looked like, I dunno, someone just ate your rabbit food.”

“Wow, thanks, Dean,” Sam gripes, moving to get out of the car. “Don’t make me worry about dogs like that. My heart can’t take it.”

“Get your knickers outta your ass, bitch,” Dean replies.

“Jerk.”

Dean stops quite abruptly as if Sam’s said something incriminating or all the air’s gone out of the car. He licks his lips. Slides his eyes along the dashboard. “Hey, Sammy...” tries to look nonchalant, “you know I’m glad you’re here, right?”

“What?” Sam hits a roadblock in processing Dean’s words, turns it over and around, looking for an explanation.

“Just thought you might’ve wanted to know,” Dean says, immediately backtracking at Sam’s narrow-eyed suspicion. “Asshole little brother, number one wingman?”

“Yeah, sure,” Sam waves it off. Dean’s been going through a bit of a weird phase, side-eyeing Sam half the time probably because he’s picking up on Sam’s grim mood.

Sam doubts Dean really means it, anyway.

Soon they’ve made their way out of the parking lot and Dean’s fucking stripping off his shirt as they walk down the dirt path, getting it all tangled in his arms. Heads are already turning and Sam finds himself dragging his feet to disappear in Dean’s shadow. There’s no shame in this, he thinks. Dean should get to be seen the way he wants.

One of the girls on the dock dipping her toes into the water calls, indiscernible to Sam but undoubtedly directed towards Dean. She flips her golden hair and then goes diving into the water in a spray of crystals. Dean’s practically locked onto the group of girls she’s joined, where they’re all laughing in the water in a picture-perfect rendition of the summer and their friends litter the edges of the lake as an extension of their felicity. Sam settles down under the shade of a few tall willowy trees, skinny like the fingers of a buried hand, taking Dean’s shirt from his hands and plastering on an exasperated smile.

Dean buzzing from head to toe with anticipation, but he looks towards Sam as if for approval or maybe something else, looking for a reflection of willingness, probably, (which is stupid, he shouldn’t have to look over to Sam, Sam shouldn’t be holding him back) and then strips off his jeans like he always does and Sam immediately groans and covers his eyes. “Dean!” he protests, and he doesn’t need to see to know that Dean’s grinning like a madman while he shucks off the denim and pulls on the boardshorts. Dean always does this. Sam can hear a wolf whistle from one of the girls carrying out over the water. Some of the boys have turned their heads too, only because they want to know what’s captured the girls’ attentions, but by then Dean’s already decent.

“Come on, Sammy,” Dean says, all wicked. “Your turn.” Because he roped Sam out here without giving him a chance to change into the shorts, first. Of course. Sam shuffles behind a bush to hurriedly change, and then he piles their clothes together neatly and feels awkward under Dean’s confident body, limbs too long and hiding behind his hair. Sam’s not actually going to swim yet — but Dean’s already taken off for the rock outcropping on their side of the lake, where a waterfall of sorts, the weak spraying kind, is feeding into the lake.

A shuffling sound beside him makes Sam raise his head. There’s a girl there, just the one, black hair reaching her shoulders and in swimwear. Her eyes flicker over the grassy little space that Sam’s chosen to sit and the folded clothes beside him.

“He’s already gone to the water, if that’s what you’re looking for,” Sam says drily. It probably is.

“Oh,” she says. When he looks up, she’s blushing. He turns his attentions back to Dean, who’s poised at the edge of the waterfall and grinning. The amulet catches the light from here. It reassures Sam, faintly.

Instead, though, she settles down next to Sam, and he shifts uncomfortably at the proximity. No one really comes close unless they’re Dean. Or if they want in on Dean’s pants, he guesses.

“Sorry,” she says. Dean leaps, suspended in the air before he plunges down with a reasonable splash, emerging with his hair plastered to his head and his eyes crinkled up into a grin.

“I get it,” he replies shortly, and then a silence falls over them in which the willowy trees murmur and he realises what he’s said is distressingly ambiguous.

“It’s just–” she says, and he really doesn’t want to hear it, but she’s talking anyway with a nervous smile. “A girl can dream, right? Some handsome stranger coming into town and falling in love and taking her away... Away from everything I’ve got here, the same old people and families and jobs.”

It’s in that moment that he realises she has all the time in the world to look up at the clouds to see shapes, dreams, faces... a stranger who’s right for her. It’s a game to her, some sort of amusing pastime, to go looking around under bushes and hedges for love.

He doesn’t fault her for it. Not really. It doesn’t stop him from feeling a little resentful, though.

“What’s it like being with him?” she asks.

“He’s just another person,” Sam says. He’s not. He’s everything.

“Really?” she says, and for some reason her tone annoys Sam.

“Yeah.”

There’s a pause in which her disbelief swells and she looks at him expectantly.

“He’s just another goddamn person but ‘prettier’,” he snaps. “He doesn’t mean anything to you. You’ll forget him in a month.”

“Well _excuse_ me for your assumptions. Christ.” Despite her affront, she stays. He’s her only source of information on Dean, and he’s pretty sure he hasn’t been rude enough to drive her away entirely because she’s just that desperate. “What, is it too much to ask if dream guy isn’t secretly an asshole now?”

Sam says nothing, but his fists clench.

Dean’s the kindest damn person in the world. It doesn’t matter if he makes the tough calls, or scams people, or sometimes litters, or leers at every lady they pass by, or has a bit of a temper, or sometimes leaves Sam at school to walk home because he’s too drunk or busy screwing a girl; or if Sam was stood up for hours to prom only to realise his girlfriend was in the motel getting fucked by his brother. It doesn’t matter, because Sam believes Dean’s heart is in the right place.

In the pockets of the pants he’s got folded beside him there are pages of John’s journal. All the entries that mention Sammy.

It’s just the way things work. There’s no love to be found under bushes and hedges, only the remains of little birds and cats that have crawled there to die.

“What about ‘normal’ don’t you understand? Everybody’s a bit of an asshole sometimes,” he says.

“Sammy!” he hears, and his head turns whiplash-quick. Dean’s there at the edge of the lake, waving to him. All the girls surrounding him are chittering and laughing because Sam’s so ‘cute’, and it makes Dean seem all the more appealing, the fact that he’s got a little brother he looks after. “Come in!”

“No!”

To his horror, Dean rises out of the water, water running all down his body and it’s so obscene, Sam can’t look, all his muscles there and highlighted by the dancing of water and light, boardshorts heavy and wet and clinging to the swell of his thighs, the inevitable bulge between them, the way they show the cut of his hips and Sam very suddenly hates that everyone else is ogling and he isn’t.

The girl next to him, who he’s completely forgotten about at this point, is staring not at Dean, but at Sam. He can see a revelation in her blue eyes. “I’ve never met anyone who’s gay,” she says, as if puzzle pieces are falling into place but the picture’s too startling to let the public see.

“I’m not,” Sam says, flushing. He’s not. He’s just in love with Dean, and those two things are radically different because only one is acceptable.

Dean’s there and his strong fingers are wrapping around Sam’s arm and hauling him upright. “Say bye to your girlfriend, Sammy, we’re jumping.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Sam says, averting his eyes. “She’s got a crush on you, not me.”

The girl’s eyes widen. Dean stops, looking back at her where he’s already started carting Sam away. She’s still staring at Sam, though, so Dean chuckles and says, “Really.” It makes something pool in Sam’s gut and feel horribly like a fraud.

Sam’s led all the way to the rock outcropping where water sprays down around them and there’s moss all over the floor and wet leaves stuck to the stones. “Biggest splash you can,” Dean warns, and so Sam takes a deep breath and jumps, because if Dean says to jump, it must be safe, despite how his stomach lurches as he hangs there midair, because for a moment the lake is spread out beneath him and glittering and ignorantly beautiful.

He crashes down in a billow of bubbles and Dean shoots into the water beside him a second later, so they break the surface at the same instant and he wants to throw himself at Dean, cling to him and kiss him everywhere. Every last droplet clinging to his skin.

Instead, the chittering girls and a couple of boys that are with them crowd in, and Sam fades into the background with seaweed tickling his feet, fending off the occasional question directed at him and ducking away shyly whenever one of the girls coo. But the sun sets quickly and the wind starts to bring chill, the water’s less glittery and his fingers are starting to prune; and although the girls suggest they skinny-dip, Dean refuses, and soon he and Sam are slowly drifting to the shore, ready to head home. Sam spots the willowy trees where their clothes are left, but when they rise, it’s just the towels and the Impala keys.

Sam stares, uncomprehending. Where on earth are their clothes? A bark of laugh from Dean startles him. “And you say she doesn’t like you, Sammy!”

“What?” A moment after the word leaves his mouth, he realises. She’s stolen their _clothes._

Dean seems to take it all in stride, drying himself down with a towel and slinging it over his shoulders, and he’s rolling his shoulders and all ready to leave but Sam’s still looking around. Hadn’t Dean liked his shirt?

“Jeez, Sam, don’t worry about it. It’s just some shirts and pants.”

They’ll have to pay for new ones. Or steal them. Then Sam’s struck abruptly by the fact that he won’t be here after tomorrow — Dean will have all the money on his own, a triple on his allowance now, living a comfortable life, hunting like he wants to. He can buy whatever shirt he wants.

It’s almost as if Sam forgot for a moment. This is his last day as Dean’s little brother. “Why would someone want to take our stuff?”

“‘Cause she’s creep?” Dean scoffs, then quickly switches tone. “It’s like... it’s like sex without sex. You know when girls take underwear? Yeah. A memento. Might as well let her have ‘em.”

Sam’s turns to look; Dean’s gaze is deliberately fixed on a point just over his shoulder. He’s aware, somehow, that Dean’s just said something quite profound, has just skirted around the edges of _them_. If the amulet had been in that pile of clothes, Dean wouldn't have even hesitated.

But Sam lets it ripple away, fade, like murmurs in a lake.

*

Every last trace of Sam Winchester is in a bag at his feet. All his clothing, a pair of old sneakers, his toothbrush, his school records, the army man, the lego pieces he painstakingly removed from the vents, anything, _everything_ that could accidentally buckle Dean’s memory when he’s gone. It’s four AM, he got Dean blasted drunk and taken the amulet and deleted his records off Dean’s phone. If Sam needed evidence before that his life was insignificant before, this is enough. There’s practically nothing in the bag because _Dean_ is the most evidence of Sam.

The spell isn’t all that simple. Luckily, Sam is experienced with dealing with what’s not simple. He knows every detail and flick of the five hundred and thirty-two strokes he’s going to use for the symbols he needs. All night he’s been carefully penning them onto his skin, but now he’s ready for the real deal.

The knife he uses is one that he gave Dean on his seventeenth birthday. He lays the blade against his arm to accustom himself to the coldness first. He’s never drawn his own blood before... but the fact that he’ll have a task to focus on should distract him from the pain, the deliberate act of mutilating himself.

He swallows. It’s not a mutilation. It’s an- it’s an improvement.

At the first split of his skin it’s a gash of red, and if it didn’t sting like it did, he could almosts pretend it isn’t his body that opens up under the iron. There’s a towel across his lap that’s slowly being dripped with blots of red, but he’s a million miles away. Nothing matters but the end goal. He can’t get distracted by things such as his own pain. Dean, he’s doing it all for Dean. Think about Dean.

The tears come from nowhere and he tries to be irritated at them but can’t. They’re obscuring his sight a little. He can’t afford to make mistakes, but he can’t wipe at them either because both his arms are occupied and if he stops he’ll lose the momentum he’s got right now. It’s for Dean, come on. He can’t start _crying_ now.

When the tremors start in his chest and spread outward like a spider web into sobs that threaten to jarr his movements, he stops. It’s an involuntary reaction to the reality that’s quickly setting in. Dean, oh god, Dean. The blade quivers in his hold. He’d even sharpened it in preparation.

The basest part of him is haunted by the thought, childishly, that if Sam needs him enough, Dean will come; that they share a sort of connection that defies all space and time.

Those sorts of thoughts are the bad ones. They’re the ones that grow his parasitic dependence on Dean. The truth is that Dean is sleeping in the next room over and Sam is alone. He _has_ to be. If he does this then Dean can be Dean, hunting without a brother behind him, the perfect son, riding around the country killing evil things and charming women. Maybe one day Dean will really take a minute to slow down because a one-night stand has turned into something more and he’ll fall in love, and she’ll be so good for him that she falls in love with both him and the hunting lifestyle, and then it’ll be the Impala, Dean, and some faceless girl that even John approves of. They’ll keep doing what they do and they’ll have a kid, a little girl Dean dotes on.

His memory spins for a moment, warping... _Sam,_ he’s the one who’s supposed to be Dean’s family- no, no, no, that’s not right. Dean will have his little girl and his smile and steady love will light up all the night skies for miles.

Sam’s lips are salty and tears are dripping off his chin but his hands have steadied. He holds onto that image of Dean in happiness and that’s what gives him strength; Dean gives up the world for him. Why can’t Sam do the same? He gets up off the floor to the bathroom and slices into his chest with his eyes locked onto his reflection. The blood hisses and darkens after it emerges, fading from red to black.

He spends hours in front of the mirror until his arms are sore but the redness around his eyes has vanished, and there’s nothing but the steady slice of the blade.

It’s done.

The door to the bathroom is still shut. Dean is still sleeping. No one has stopped him. Sam is done, and he folds up the bloodied towel to wash it under the shower before leaving it back on the rack. It’s done. The finality of it rings in his chest like a struck bell. It should feel more monumental than this. Horns should be playing somewhere, but it’s just quiet.

The emerging dawn feels like a vacuum, as if all sound is missing. Sam moves in a trance, out the door, the empty hall — Dean’s door is closed (he’ll be hungover) — and he can’t help but stop a moment to look in as if to remind himself exactly why he’s giving up everything. Dean sleeps peacefully without a worry in the world. He lies on his back, mouth open slightly, snoring gently.

Sam? Sam, well, Sam- in all his wordless vigil, is struck one last time by the beauty of his brother. All his doubts are dashed from his mind. Sam has never met and will never meet another person quite as radiant as Dean.

He can’t hope to compare.

Sam can’t bring himself to step into the room. Like the final boundary has been put in place, Sam has no place in Dean’s life anymore.

  
  
  


*

The town’s not large enough nor close enough to the big cities for him to ride a bus out of there, so Sam’s holding out to buy all the food and water he can before he starts trekking down the road and hopefully hitchhiking the rest of his way. He feels bad for having stolen money from Dean, but he’s been stealing Dean’s money for the last sixteen years. What’s a few more days?

He’s still got all his school records and recommendations from principals and deans alike. Figures he might pick up a gig as a private tutor for kids where he stops. The library around here opens early, and he guiltily goes in and opens one of the windows to drop textbooks outside into the bushes below.

Half an hour later, he steps into the one of the corner stores nearby with a bag that’s a few kilograms heavier than before. He needs a few bottles of water and food for the road, but as soon as he enters, he hears a familiar voice that stops him in his tracks. His heart speeds up. It’s stupid, Dean shouldn’t recognise him, Sam has nothing to be afraid of, but he is. He is afraid.

He ducks his head as he goes around, grabs some of those packaged sandwiches without even looking at the fillings. The cashier is a perky little blonde and she’s laughing at whatever Dean’s just said. Dean himself is leaning across the counter as she doesn’t even scan his groceries because they’re too busy flirting.

Sam lines behind Dean ashamedly. Dean must know there’s someone behind him, but he doesn’t turn around. The cashier, though, she realises she’s got another customer to attend to and soon she’s handing over her number as she scans in Dean’s salad. Sam’s brain hiccups for a moment. Why is Dean buying salad?

As Dean turns to leave, his eyes flick over Sam in the bare bones of acknowledgement, then his gaze has moved on and Sam is left more shaken than he’s ever been. Dean’s never looked at him as if he means nothing.

“That’d be ten,” the cashier tells him. Sam pays her. This is what he wanted, he tells himself. This is what he signed up for. As soon as he leaves and never sees Dean again everything will get better.

He’s surprised to see that Dean is standing outside, and for a moment his heart leaps at the thought that maybe Dean is waiting for him. Dean isn’t. He’s looking down, holding the bag of salad in his hands and frowning as if he’s unsure why he’d bought it.

Dean drops it into the bin in front of the store as he leaves. Sam contemplates fishing it out, but instead he walks away too, and leaves it there.

*

Sam leaves that afternoon in the front seat of a truck with a round-bellied but friendly large man beside him. The guy had picked him up right in the corner store when Sam realised he’d forgotten to buy a phone charger. The man was just there, announcing his destination to the cashier, and Sam had asked if he could come with — and if anyone still remembered him or if he had any dignity left to care about, maybe Sam would’ve been embarrassed about the look the lady turned to him.

The guy says he’s going down on a short drive to Arkansas, hopefully to pass through a few cities, and he’s happy to drop Sam off in any city they pass by. Sam’s reluctant to talk. He spends the drive with his bag on his toes and a hand curled around its straps, nostrils filled with the scent of an air freshener that’s sitting in the divider between them.

When he’s asked where he comes from, Sam hunkers down and says something noncommittal like _doesn’t matter_. The guy just chuckles and turns back to the road, as if he figures Sam’s supposed to be taciturn or he’s imagining where Sam used to be, or if he’s just playing down Sam’s sullenness with a small laugh.

The roads they pass are mostly filled with nothing. Mile markers, maybe. They’re in the lowlands, and it’s not like Sam recognises every specific road in the country, so he lets his mind wander while trees spring up around them. He hasn’t been in many cars aside from the Impala or the rickety rides John tends to rent for his solo hunts. The deep rumble of the truck’s engine is foreign and unsophisticated compared to Impala’s purr. He’ll miss her. He’ll miss her, and he miss Dean–

Sam can’t even think about Dean without tears springing to his eyes. He firmly pushes the thought of Dean away into the corner of his mind, then finds that there’s nothing left. He can’t look at the clouds without thinking of how they used to lie on the plain grassy hill and count imaginary dreams, or mile markers without thinking of their forever spent on the road, or the flaws in the glass that remind him of the Impala’s perfect windows under Dean’s constant doting.

They pull off the highway onto a small road where trees are starting to crowd in on all sides and the light is swallowed by the mass that rises around them, giants unfurling like shadows that move in the dark where no men live. Sam hides his alarm as the guy says, “Don’t worry about it, I just needa stop a’home first and grab some papers.”

Tree branches claw at the truck’s sides. Sam’s aware suddenly that he doesn’t know if the guy is carrying a knife or a pistol on his left side. A gun. Fuck. What if he has a gun? Any sudden move could tip the man off, so Sam tries to relax his muscles and pretend it’s all alright, like he’s just some sort of stupid kid. He needs to get out of the car. The man’s smile is plastered onto his face like a painted wind-up doll’s.

They trundle down the small path and it’s terribly winding and twisting. Sam loses track of his bearings instantly, control dropped away into a depthless pond. Maybe he’s just being over-paranoid. Maybe the driver has nothing malicious planned.

The truck pulls up at a small, rickety cabin, stacks of firewood outside and one of the windows boarded up. It looks weighed down by the heaviness of the trees surrounding it. The guy says he’s going to grab something out of the back, and silence floods in as he turns off the engine and takes the keys. Ice washes over him; alarms are screaming in Sam’s head. As soon as the guy rounds the back Sam’s hands go wild, scrabbling at the compartments in the front of the trunk for hints.

They’re locked. It shouldn’t mean anything — people are free to lock what they want — but Sam’s stomach absolutely _shrivels_ with dread and his heart beats rapid fire at the notion that he’s out here alone with a potential murderer. The guy disappears into the house, and Sam waits a heartbeat before cautiously opening the door and tumbling outside. He rounds the back of the vehicle to see what cargo it’s got because it’s been left open, expecting to see guns or weapons or contraband or any other sort of confirmation. There isn’t anything like that. It’s just a gaping cavern of nothing and a wave of stench that absolutely bowls him over and gags him on his spit. Rot. It’s rot, for days and days.

Bodies, he thinks, immediately.

In a heartbeat Sam is gone, taking off for the trees and disappearing into their oppressive weight, trying to hurry without causing noise or leave a trail of broken bristles behind him. He goes blindly into the depths of the forest’s belly. He has to stay _just_ out of sight of the road because he knows it’s going to be watched but he’s got to follow it to get back to the highway. Invisible birds call in his ears and twigs crunch. Then the rumble of the truck’s engine tears through the forest, and he freezes still as he sees the white of the vehicle through pine trunks. Sam hunkers down by a fallen, rotting log, bristles matted under his shoes. The truck is moving at a snail’s pace down the road. The man is undoubtedly looking for Sam.

He fumbles for his phone. No signal.

With bated breath, Sam watches until it passes by and then he takes an even larger berth from the road, stopping at one point to take out a warm and unpleasant sandwich from his bag that he chews on as he walks through the forest. The smell of pine and dampness that never dries is overwhelming, the ground permanently uneven and filled with skittering movement. He feels like it doesn’t end. He can’t hear the truck so he’s plagued by the persistent fear crawling up the back of his spine that the man has parked the truck somewhere and is looking for Sam on foot.

He skids every now and then in the bumpy terrain, ankle threatening to buckle, and as the light dies he’s unfairly reminded of a late-night hunt. Except this time he’s lost and disoriented and Dean’s not right beside him.

The snick is barely heard before the pain knocks him blind and a scream _rips_ out of his throat, shrill and piercing. Absolute silence follows in its terrible wake. Sam can only hear his pulse thundering and breaths coming aborted while pain spikes through him. Oh, god. He knows what it is. He can’t look down. His blood is warm. It’s soaking his jeans.

Sam’s distantly aware that he’s going into shock. His ankle must be broken.

The trucker will hear him, the trucker would’ve heard his scream... Sam gropes for a tree trunk and uses it to support him as he limps forward, right leg dragging behind him like a weight. He just needs to get to the highway where there’ll be signal. He just needs to call the police. He’ll get to hospital. Everything will be fine. That’s what Dean would say.  

The teeth of the trap are rusted and old and he’s expecting infection to set in soon. It’s surreal, to see the metal clamped around his ankle like this, shredding into his flesh. It’s a foothold trap. Not for bears. Maybe 6 inches wide, for lambs and beavers and coyotes. Impossible for him to dislodge. Bleeding freely.

He wants to flush out his mind with curses and throw his head back but he _can’t,_ it’s not safe, fuck if he didn’t wish he didn’t have to keep going.

He can’t help the whimpers that escape him, the weak little sounds each time he stumbles onwards. Another trap nearly gets his other leg, but he halts at the last moment as moonlight slants over the rusted metal. The woods must be crawling with them. Sam walks like the dead, pausing in between short patches. Hauling his leg behind him makes it feel like his foot is going to come off, like the teeth are sinking into his muscle and slowly pulling his tendons apart. It’s so hopeless that he just wants to cry. He’s almost convinced that he’s going to die out here. He’ll go delirious with infection and then he’ll bleed out and that man will find his body and put it in the back of his truck and cut him up or some other atrocity, and the knowledge that Sam had ever loved Dean, the knowledge and the existence of Sam, will be lost forever.

The world blurs around the tree he’s leaning against. When he opens his eyes again, he’s lying in the dirt, every part of him aching, sunlight streaming through the pine and his ankle still crumpled between two steel jaws. His shoes and jeans feel tight and he knows that’s because the skin there’s all swollen up and streaked with red from infection. He clumsily takes a water bottle out of his bag and drinks. Then he tries his cellphone again, pressing the power button, except the screen doesn’t light up. He presses again, disbelief setting in but overshadowed by a great dread. He must’ve forgotten to turn it off. Now the battery’s dead.

Sam has never been in a worse place, not even when a hunt’s turned sour, not even when he’d been trapped alone in a locked building with two vengeful spirits because Dean and John had been distracted outside. Or nearly hit by a drunk driver. This time there’s no Dean to come crashing through a window, no Dean to yell at the drunken man and swaddle Sam in his care. He’s overcome with the urge to, if he gets out of this, call Dean, even if he says nothing and just listens to Dean talk. He just wants to hear the most precious thing in his life once again, because he’s fucking selfish and he can’t even leave for a day without getting hurt.

He puts his hands down to push himself upright and get moving again. But the ground that his hand’s supposed to push down on gives way and his arm goes straight into a hole, and it’s pain all over again, lacerating his arm. When he looks down, through tears, it’s another trap. A little hole in the ground designed for legs, stakes imbedded into the walls that are impaled into his skin right now. They remind him of barbs. Tilted downwards, they let things in but not out. Shaking, Sam leans over with his other hand and claws at the dirt until he widens the hole, and he can pull the spikes without tearing himself up further.

An hour later Sam’s not sure if he’s delirious from the fever or the fear, just that suddenly he can hear the sound of cars on the road in the distance and he’s so relieved he could cry and die and pass out once he’s in the safety of anybody’s arms. He just needs to call down a car and beg someone to ring the ambulance. The trees slowly clear as he inches towards the light and there it is, the highway spread out in front of him, a car rattling down in the distance in a mirage.

He tumbles down towards the road, waving his hand like a white flag. There’s no doubt in his mind that he’s crying. He wishes this nightmare would just be over. He wishes he could just go back to Dean.

Then he sees it: the truck. It’s sitting at the bend where the smaller road merges onto the highway and Sam backs off, trembling, shrinking back into the woods where he’ll hide until he finds a safer place to emerge.

The next thing he knows is that a rough hand is clamped over his mouth and his still-bleeding arm is being wrenched back and he’s hauled across the ground, toward the truck, in broad fucking daylight and he screams and screams and bites at the fingers and screams like he’s never known before, kicking out and thrashing in absolute unadulterated fear. But he’s weak from fever and half his limbs are injured and no match for the big man hauling him to the truck now, the sound of metal against the asphalt dreadful like claws being dragged.

He never lets up on the fight, even though he can feel the blood gushing from his leg and the man’s smashing his head with his fist hard enough to get him to have Sam blacking out periodically. There has to be another car. Someone has to see this. Sam can’t die here. No, no!

One minute Sam is swinging his leg up and kicking the man as hard as he can, and he’s clawing and feral like a wildcat and flinging himself away, crawling across the asphalt, and the next he’s turning around to stare in horror at the man lunging at him, at the meaty hand wrapping around Sam’s raised leg before there’s a black streak and a dull _thunk_ where the man’s swept away and a sickening crunch of flesh and bone.

Sam throws up. He throws up and can’t stop throwing up, especially when the car (it’s the Impala, it’s the fucking Impala) is thrown into reverse and deliberately rolls over the man’s body again, the blood glistening sickly against the road and bone showing.

“Sam! Sammy, Sammy, you with me? Hey! Sam!” He never thought he’d hear Dean’s voice again, calling his name like that, like he cared. The car door is flung wide open even though the vehicle hasn’t stopped. Dean’s shoes against the road. John is stepping out too and Sam shies away because he’s disgusting, he’s pathetic, he must’ve fucked up the sigil somehow, oh, god, he can’t do anything right.

For a moment he sees it like divine retribution. This is what he gets for trying to leave his family.

But he’s too weak to resist as John puts both feet down on the springs of the trap and takes the tension off the jaws, Dean gently eases out Sam’s broken and bleeding ankle. Dean’s bundling him into the back of the Impala and Sam’s traitorous body immediately eases.

Dean’s mouth is running a mile a minute. “Never again, Sammy, you hear me? If it weren’t for– if it weren’t for– just– Fuck, Sam!” Sam thinks Dean might be crying too, but in that strong composed way of his while Sam’s just a pathetic mess.

“Sorry,” he croaks, and then he passes out.

*

The hospital is a sordid affair. Police come and go to get his testimony, and eventually they return with a report that details one Maxwell Sinclair had the bodies of boys and girls from five to twenty cut up in his cabin. He regularly took hitchhikers to his small cabin and butchered them there while the traps caught all those that escaped.

He thinks John comes in at one point when he’s half-asleep, standing pale and silent at the end of Sam’s bed as though he’s seen a ghost or as though he _is_ a ghost, but he doesn’t say anything. Just lays a hand on Sam’s shoulder and squeezes then quietly leaves. Other days, Dean’s there. No, _every_ day Dean’s there, blabbering to Sam about how this girl came to him with their fucking jeans she stole, saying she wasn’t sure where she’d got the second pair from, but it might’ve been Dean’s, and Dean had read the pages of the journal that’d been stuffed in there and the wall had crumbled like it was nothing.

And Dean had called up John in a frantic panic until the spell on John fell apart too, and the damn cashier had told him a brown-haired boy hitchhiked with a man in his large, unmarked truck toward Arkansas. They’d blown right past the truck parked on the highway before Dean had just gotten this _feeling_ and watched in the rear mirror and then he’d seen Sam, and started screaming in John’s ear to _turn around, dad, it’s Sam! Turn around, turn around, turn around!_

Sam lies in the bed like he’s dead. Now that Dean’s told the story three times and his hands have stopped shaking, he sits there looking plaintive. “Sam,” he says, and Sam closes his eyes in preparation of what’s to come. “Why?”

Outside the window, ambulances pull out from the carpark. They’re unloading people that look like they’ve been mauled, wounds burst across their skin, red and blue lights everywhere. Sam pretends he’s interested in what’s happening. He says, “It was just a spur of the moment thing.”

There’s a pause in which Sam almost believe Dean’s bought it, that Dean’ll just let it go on between them as the silently acknowledged lie. Except Dean’s hand slams onto the table beside Sam’s bed with a tremendous bang. “God _damn it, Sam!_ ” Dean isn’t rife with rage. It’s desperation. “This is _our_ life you’re meddling with here– Don’t pull your doom and gloom bullcrap– You’ve got _shit-all_ right to keep it from me!”

“Our life?” Sam asks. “Don’t you ever think it shouldn’t be?”

“What?” Dean says, incredulously. “Our... You wanna leave, Sam, is this what this is?”

“I don’t _want_ to leave. I _have_ to leave! Don’t you get it? I’m _bad_ for you, Dean!”

Dean has incomprehension written all over his features. “What on fuckin’ earth are you talking about?”

“If you didn’t have to look after me–” he looks around, as if for something in the room that can jog his memory, “you could have whatever you wanted! You could have, I don’t know, more- more- money, a whole bed to yourself, girls! You could stay out late like you always want, you wouldn’t have to get into any arguments with dad, you could have the perfect family he always preaches, you don’t have to be big brother and be tough for me all the time, you know? You could- go hunting more often, you could- you could- what _do_ you want, Dean? Because guaranteed, if I’m not around, it’ll be easier for you!”

Dean still looks utterly bewildered, as if he can’t believe the words coming out from Sam’s mouth, and he reels from the bed. “What makes you think I want any of that junk? Small price to pay for my own personal pain in the ass little brother.”

“Who the hell would want that?!” Sam can’t conceive it.

Once, Sam had read about the _Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga,_ a parasitic wasp that grows on the bodies of unwitting spiders. It injects a chemical that causes the spider to cease regular web-spinning to build a cocoon for its parasite instead. And when Sam emerges, in all his bloody glory, limbs unfurling in wasp wings and spindle-legs, mouth hungry and clicking for Dean’s flesh. Dean — Dean, who’s waited so patiently for him to emerge, placated by Sam’s venom, waiting with a smile and a tear.

Because Sam’s watching, he notices the instant that understanding sets in. “Sam,” Dean says firmly, every inch the big brother, though his words turn earnest. “When you were out there like that, and I, _we_ , couldn’t find you, I was outta my mind, okay? Call me selfish. Hell, call your _self_ selfish, but I can’t even begin to tell you how freakin’ fundamentally flawed the world was once you walked out; kept lookin’ over my shoulders for ghosts that weren’t there.”

“Ghosts,” Sam says. “Why? Do I haunt you?”

“Every step of the way,” Dean replies, leaning closer. “You hear me? Every damn step of the way you’re on my shoulders, so if you _think_ you’re getting out of this _,_ little brother, _think again_! There ain’t no getting out of this for us. Tell me you didn’t see me everywhere you went. Tell me!”

“I–” A beat of hesitation. “I didn’t. I didn’t see you anywhere.” Sam’s voice trembles minutely.

“Liar,” Dean whispers. He’s very close. Sam could count his freckles.  

“I didn’t,” Sam repeats, but he squeezes his eyes shut in the face of his awful lie and that’s all the weakness Dean needs.

“I can’t forget you. You can’t forget me. We _can’t_ fucking walk out.” Dean grabs Sam’s face in his hands. Sam feels like he’s being drowned underwater, or held and condemned. “You’re my little brother, Sam,” he says, “I’ll always catch up to you. And I’ll never regret it, ‘cause the world pales under ya.”

The world shifts, suddenly, and somehow Sam isn’t surprised that Dean’s the one with the power to change his universe radically with just a word.

“I’m glad you did,” Sam whispers.

“What was that?” Dean is so close now that Sam could count his eyelashes, like the downy feathers on a bird.

“I’m glad you caught up,” Sam says, louder this time, and then Dean’s on him, mouth moving hot and hungry and insistent, tongue urging Sam’s lips open, pressing him back into his pillows with his fervour. Sam’s arms link behind Dean’s neck, hips arching because the sensation of Dean against him goes straight through his body.

Dean draws back for a moment to see Sam, ravaged by steel teeth and an endless road and guns but most of all by _Dean_ , and so when he leans in the second time his kisses are soft and gentle, slowly curling deeper and melting on Sam’s tongue like honey.

Dean stays with him all day, trading lazy kisses when the nurses aren’t in. He makes it a game, lifts the haze, takes the grimness of Sam’s existence and replaces with something good and new and whole. Sam is in love. He always has been.

*

There’s something frightening about being subjected to Dean’s gaze, as if Dean at any moment will realise Sam’s body is nothing appealing and will change his mind. But Dean doesn’t. He never seems to. Instead, he continues kissing up Sam’s leg, up the pale curve of his thigh, nosing in under Sam’s balls with a wicked grin.

Even gentle brushes are painted over with a sexual veneer, so when Dean presses another open-mouthed kiss to his other thigh, all the muscles in Sam’s leg leap and he gasps, unwittingly. He’s already hard and drooling against his belly though Dean hasn’t touched his cock at all.

When Dean does, Sam moans embarrassingly but he’s granted the sensation of Dean burying his face in the crook of Sam’s hip with his own groan, one hand wrapped around Sam’s dick, arousal riding up Sam’s ankle. He plays with Sam’s cock relentlessly, mouthing over the tip sometimes, dragging his tongue up from the base to head, other hand pressing into Sam’s perineum. Sam’s going to come embarrassingly fast like this. He can feel the ghost of Dean’s touch on his prostate, pressure. His legs hook around Dean’s back and the balls of his feet rest in the dip of Dean’s back as if to pull them closer.

They’ve got an open tube of lube beside them and before Sam knows it, the finger’s slipped down to his crack and is gently teasing him open. Sam’s never done this before. It’s uncomfortable and his muscles clench down strangely when Dean pulls out, but Dean’s mouth on his cock loosens him until Dean’s got another finger in and gently scissoring. His prostate is a warm wash of pleasure and the discomfort dissolves as he starts practically writhing on Dean’s fingers, rocking back into Dean’s every pump.

He would tell Dean to hurry up and get on with it but he doesn’t, because it’s all in the chase of pleasure and the way Dean’s hand has left his dick to entangle in his own fingers than the actual peak. Dean shuffles up as Sam’s feet slip away, and leans down to kiss him as if he can read Sam’s mind, fingers still working at loosening Sam. Preparing him. For Dean. The thought sends a sharp spike of heat through his spine; Dean swallows the sound he makes.

Then his legs are being hoisted up and Dean is sinking in, huge and heavy and easing his way into the place he made for himself, age 0, T nothing, beginning of the world maybe, when Sam was first carried out a fire or lost his first baby tooth, or when Sam was brought together through cells and blood and flesh and some deity above blessed him with a heart that would only ever love one man.

Dean won’t stop kissing him, even as his hips grind down and he bottoms out in Sam, drawing back for a powerful thrust and Sam is so full that he feels it all the way through him. No puppet strings needed, just push Dean’s dick in him and Sam’s every move is under control. Can’t think straight; the world’s awash in pleasure and Dean and sense stops there. “Dean,” he might be saying, not even sure if his eyes are open. _Slap slap slap_ while the bed rocks nonsensically with their rhythm, panting, Dean strong above him with his muscle awash with sweat, all skin. Sam could worship it forever.

Wrapped up all tight with his brother in him, sounds just like Sam. Nothing in his life isn’t quite like that and Sam wouldn’t want it differently — not when he knows it’s reciprocated. Sam is a little selfish like that, but he lives and laughs and dies for Dean and if Dean won’t have him, all of it is pointless. But Dean does, he does, and so Sam lives on.

Dean comes while pressed completely to him, where Sam can feel every twitch of his cock and the pounding of his heart and the way he stops breathing at the all-encompassment of it. Sam can’t say much, because his sight goes black and he wets their chests with his orgasm as he milks Dean dry, back arching in a huge bow that’s been fired.

“Mother of shitting Christ,” Dean maybe-says, pulling out and rolling off him, though not without another kiss.

Sam’s sure he’s no more bones in his body. His ass feels fucked out and a little strange, warm inside with the memory of Dean. He moves his legs experimentally as Dean gets off the bed to shamble into the bathroom, aware that Dean’s gone off to get something to clean them with and then probably some water too. Some part of him feels bad that he’s lying there sated while Dean’s doing all the work.

When Dean returns, towel in hand, water bottles from the kitchen, Sam is leaning at the desk. They are in Dean’s room, temporarily, a house rented out because Dean and John knew they were staying for a while for Sam to recover in hospital. Dean awaits Sam’s judgement.

It is, “Oh.” Then, “So that girl never gave you my pants?”

“She did,” Dean says, a little gruffly. “These didn’t make sense to me at first. Why do I have some random kid’s school books?”

“Wouldn’t you have thrown them out?”

“No.” Dean’s voice is tight and reluctant to part with the information.

“Oh,” Sam says again. He seems to be thinking, sex forgotten, flipping through the books of Sam’s, aged five to sixteen. Dean’s left comments in the margins and circled the places where Sam needed improvement, or where Sam mentioned a favourite book or academic pursuit of his. Every year Sam thought he'd just left his old school books behind. It wasn't like he needed to look back on his old essays.

He’s never wondered how Dean knew what Sam was always dying to read. How, even when Dean was so dismissive of Sam’s ‘nerd’ ways, knew the ins and outs of it. “So you would’ve found me in the end, anyway.”

“Sam–” but Sam is already there, in Dean’s arms, hugging him tightly as if letting go would mean a certain death. Without missing a beat, Dean squeezes back just as desperately.

“You fuckin’ bet I would’ve,” Dean says.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. why do they still call it seaweed in lakes?? what about... lakeweed
> 
> 2\. writing about america & naming any place always makes me irrationally nervous that i’m getting something horrifyingly geographically wrong.
> 
> 3\. On the Sam image: sigil was first in a grey so light that when shrunk down to be placed on Sam, you couldn’t see it at all. + I wasn’t working on an app that supported altering layer colours like that. The ones i did have that _could_ wouldn't support exporting with transparency, so I wouldn’t be able to put the sigil ‘on’. i was so mad. it was supposed to be a simple image.
> 
> oh and i realised that no one could see the finer symbols, so some of them are me making jokes in english.
> 
> it looks like sam’s groping his crotch he’s not i swear
> 
> there’s another version of this where i exported sam to different app because it could support a way bigger canvas size, but it only has smooth brushes (fuck) so I cleaned up, smoothed, realistic blah blah’d his face, but honestly i’d have to redo the entire thing for the different style so i left it be. if i had a blog or something i’d post them both up for comparison but who the hell would want me to have a blog lol
> 
> 4\. I wrote “all the legs in his muscles” in draft
> 
> 5\. metric units for true science


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